ENERGY SECTIONALISM

Debate on Clean Energy Leads to Regional Divide
Matthew L. Wald, July 13, 2009 (NY Times)

SUMMARY
Sectionalism was present in the debates of the Founding Fathers. It was the essential cause of the Civil War. It continues to roil this great and diverse nation as part of the health care reform fight currently being waged in Congress. And it is elemental in the fight over the energy and climate bill.

A traditional sectional split has existed for the last few years' Congressional fight over a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES). Some states, especially in the Southeast, claim they do not have adequate resources to meet a requirement for a minimum amount of power to come from New Energy by a designated year. Those states’ political leaders partnered with their power companies in 2007 to block New Energy coalitions from pushing through an RES.

Perhaps not coincidentally, slowing a national transition to New Energy has allowed the entrenched owners of Old Energy to profit more from existing power generating infrastructure before incurring the expense of making the transition.

Nevertheless, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass technologies have emerged in the last 5-to-10 years despite impediments created by entrenched interests. That emergence now all but render empty the argument that any state cannot meet a national RES. The energy and climate bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and working its way through the Senate has a weak, “starter” national RES that promises to further the transition to New Energy while staying within all states' ability to meet it.

A new sectional coalition of political leaders and power companies has emerged to block another national undertaking that would facilitate the growth of New Energy.

The present national transmission system was woven together from sections of wires built to service the need for Old Energy in circumscribed parts of the country, not to transfer massive New Energy resources long distances. Until recently, there was no efficient high voltage carrying capacity, no technology from which a national transmission superhighway could be constructed.

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Because of this localized transmission infrastructure, most power must be generated in proximity to its consumption. This puts states and regions with little New Energy capacity at a disadvantage in the coming shift to a New Energy economy.

The disadvantage has led to real tension between Northeastern and Midwestern leaders, a tension that has led to a debate exposing an interesting phenomenon in the march toward a New Energy economy. Til now, it has been widely recognized that U.S. New Energy resources are not where the New Energy is most needed, but new transmission was supposed to solve that dilemma. Now, with the economy struggling and unemployment rising, it has suddenly become apparent that the New Energy resources and the need for new transmission are not where the need for new jobs is.

Northeastern leaders have joined with the region’s big power companies to oppose the further development of solar power plants in the Southwest and of wind installations in the Midwest where the largest numbers of people are not. These leaders and power companies want funding for New Energy to go to projects in rural and offshore New England and the Mid-Atlantic, to make sure the economic benefits of power generation for their section of the country stay in their section of the country.

But is it needed? (click to enlarge)

To that end, they are trying to alter a provision from the energy and climate legislation now making its way through Congress that would facilitate a national high voltage transmission superhighway. Without such a transmission system to deliver the electricity produced to populous demand centers far away, Midwestern and Western power producers and their representatives worry there would be no economic grounds to build the enormous and potentially costly solar, wind and geothermal projects the region’s resources would otherwise justify.

Once again there is the perhaps not coincidental effect of entrenched Old Energy power producers being able to profitably sustain existing generation methods while the potentially costly transition to New Energy is slowed. The familiarity of the opposition does not just echo the fight over the RES. It echoes the methods used by traditional Old Energy power producers in the days before New Energy, when they wanted to block construction of competing conventional power plants. Now, though the technology of the competition is new, the tactic to stop it is not.

Once the argument against building a new national transmission system might have made sound economic sense. Long distance transmission has been so inefficient it added too much to the cost of power. Now, though, turbines and solar systems can get much more where the resource is richest and deliver it to where the demand is greatest at relatively little extra cost.

With such a diverse spectrum of possibilities, this melting pot place called America must always remain aware that its greatest challenge is in healthfully settling its differences. That was what guided the Founding Fathers in the choices they made of laws and institutions. It guided the wisest of our leaders at times of great crisis. We are now at a time of real pressure. We must change. Change is intimidating. Like those who faced down revolution, the birth of government, the tearing apart of the union, the crash of Roaring 20s abundance and the challenge of opponents abroad in Europe and Asia, we must find the courage to face new ways without giving in to fear and falling apart at the seams.

They all say its needed. From seeprogress via YouTube.

COMMENTARY
The Missouri Compromise postponed the Civil War by placating sectional antagonists. A Rocky Mountain compromise has likewise been hammered out, creating a temporary coalition that pushed the energy and climate bill ahead. In the House energy and climate bill, the Northeast was able to include a provision limiting Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) jurisdiction over state regulation to new transmission in the Far West beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the rest of the country, where there are much more substantial sectional disputes, states can block extension of new high voltage transmission into their regions, thereby making room for the growth of local energy projects and local economies.

Sectional contentions have already been raised in the Senate at Committee-level hearings on the energy and climate legislation being developed there. Whether the Rocky Mountain Compromise preventing completion of a national transmission superhighway will be sustained by the entire Senate remains to be seen. Initial efforts to forge a compromise that would allow the building of a national system was blocked by Northeastern Senators who said it made it too easy for Midwestern resources to displace their own.

In point of fact, the traditional and longstanding sectional objections to New Energy by a minority of Southeastern states’ filibuster-wielding Senators funded by entrenched Old Energy interests could kill the Senate's energy and climate legislation before the sectional disputants on the transmission issue have a chance to have a say.

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For some time, New Energy proponents have talked up the richness of Midwestern wind and Southwestern sun and the need for a national transmission system but the question remains: Are there adequate local resources or is a national New Energy transmission superhighway really necessary?

It is a challenging policy question. Many of the facts needed to answer it are hypothetical, making it readily possible to draw a yes or no conclusion. Ian A. Bowles, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs for Massachusetts, has an interesting suggestion: Pass the energy and climate bill with its historic, first-ever mandatory national cap&trade system putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions and its historic, first-ever national RES. Then wait to see what the market demands. If local New Energy resources are adequate, there will be no pressure to build new transmission. If New Energy from distant sources is needed, there will be pressure for the high voltage long distance lines.

Environmentalists have an interesting take on new transmission. They are for it if there is some way to make sure it carries New Energy. Their concern is that big power companies may have ginned up an argument for new transmission only to obtain more carrying capacity for coal, nuclear and natural gas generated electrons. It would not be the first time the entrenched Old Energy interests conspired to manipulate the question of transmission to their advantage.

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But the complexities of transmission traffic are quite challenging. Already, coal plants that could produce power more inexpensively are idling while more expensive, albeit lower-emissions natural gas plants sell their electricity on antiquated, congested Northeastern grids. Adding other forms of power generation to the system, even with limited high voltage carrying capacity, will only add layers to the complexity. It could bring emissions down or costs up or both or neither and it could add exclusively New Energy electrons to the mix or not.

There is actually a reasonable, economic and ultimately inevitable compromise readily within reach when political leaders take a moment to look at the difference between sectional differences and energy differences. The great challenge to U.S. energy policy is intelligent grid integration.

If leaders could finally free themselves from the financial influence of Old Energy’s campaign contributions and lobbying, they would find the divisions are not between sections of the country but methods of energy generation. Every part of this great land is rich in some kind of New Energy resource but some are more subject to Old Energy obstructionism.

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What is necessary is not only a national high voltage transmission system but such a system with intelligence added. Adequate computer intelligence is readily available to merge the many and diverse regional and national sources of energy and manage the many types of energy and times of demand. In order to transition away from the Old Energy spew that is ruining the health of the earth and its inhabitants, the nation and the world need all the sources of New Energy they can build and bring on line. All it requires is (1) a 21st century transmission system and (2) putting the vested interests of the existing infrastructure in the transitional and phasing-out place of venerated respect for past service they deserve.

In 1860, Southern states were so intent on keeping the right to own slaves that they brought on a war that killed 620,000 soldiers and innumerable civilians. Hopefully, today’s sectionalism won’t rise to a level of violence – but will people 150 years from now look back and wonder why anybody in their right mind would take a stand against New Energy and a national transmission superhighway to carry it?

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QUOTES
New England Governors; letter to Congress: “While we support the development of wind resources for the United States wherever they exist...this ratepayer-funded revenue guarantee for land-based wind and other generation resources in the Great Plains would have significant, negative consequences for our region.”
- Dan W. Reicher, Assistant Energy Secretary, Clinton administration/head of energy initiatives, Google: “The areas with the most attractive renewable energy resources often don’t overlap with the places where the push for job creation is strongest...”

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- Mary Ellen Paravalos, vice president for transmission, New England utility National Grid: “When you have a constrained transmission system and you seek to unconstrain it...[some local parties stand to lose] even if the wider societal benefit is net positive...”
- Branko Terzic, former member, FERC: “Some states dealing with this issue see it not only as an environmental and least-cost-supply question but also as a potential economic development tool...”